After Ecobuild

Well if a visit to Ecobuild isn’t enough to get the juices flowing then I don’t know what is – What a day it was!

Ecobuild has this year moved to its new home at Excel and has increased its footprint by over 50% from 2010.

This is very positive as it obviously reflects the overall growth in this sector and the commitment of many individuals and companies to creating a lower carbon built environment!

The event guide itself is a 300 page novel detailing all of the 1300 exhibitors and the various conferences, seminars and special events scheduled for the 3 days.

Like any exhibition such as this a large amount of space is taken up by the big companies with impressive display areas that resemble swanky central London office which are adorned with attractive, well preened sales consultants versed in the sales patter of the day. However at Eco build there was still lots of space for the smaller companies and innovators to have their place.

This is where I found that you can have the more meaningful conversations with those who have a real passion for their product and the difference they are trying to make with their product or service.

There was also a vast array of seminars of high quality speakers which alone could have kept you busy without even wandering the exhibit halls. It is a tough decision to make; do you stay in the seminars to hear informative discussion from speakers who know their stuff or wander the halls of exhibitors for the latest advances in innovation, products and those adhoc conversations?

One of the highlights for us was the release of the StramitZED house.

This is the latest from Bill Dunster’s ZED factory team and a collaborative with the Stramit Technology Group (who manufacture the construction panel, Stramit StrawBoard). As the website says: ‘The StramitZED Code 6 level house is a blend of proven technologies and innovative design principles aimed at affordable sustainability’. And what a great package delivering all of this would be!

There was a built full size model of the StramitZED house at Ecobuild in the exhibition halls which gave us a glimpse of what we believe is the attractive design typified by the ZED factory team now combined with simple assembly which apparently meets level 6 standard and is affordable too.

On chatting to one of the team on site he suggested that they anticipated build costs of £12-1300 per square metre which for a Code 6 house is very reasonable.

We look forward to following the progress of this newly launched product!